The GEPRC Phantom is a fantastic quad for the money. I am running the HQProp T65mm bi-blade props on my GEPRC Phantom and love them. These props are very durable and offer the flight characteristics that work for my style of flying which is easy cruising and some proximity stuff; no hard acrobatics or stunts. I fly mostly 2S 520 mAh and 600 mAh GNB batteries (actually 2 1S batteries wired in series with DIY adapter). With this setup, I routinely get over 6 minutes from the 520 mAh batteries and often get more than 8 minutes on the 600 mAh batteries.
Nice, always cool to hear about other people's set up! Very nice flight times. I only recently got some GNB 2S 450mah, get pretty solid flight times on those too. Thanks for sharing.
I love mine. The batteries I like the best on it are 2s 550 and 3s 450. The props I like the best are hq t65 and the 2.5" avan rush. I also put the emax nano antenna on it but didn't notice a huge improvement on vtx signal.
Nice, thanks for sharing those with us! I'm yet to try out the hq props (postal strike in Finland and those will probably end up being tested next year, but nevertheless). Avan rush props I'm not taking those off the quad in the mean time
Just got mine in yesterday! Running 2s 450mah on stock blades and I absolutely love it. I plan to try the avan rush props as they were my favorite on my tiny hawk freestyle. Loved the review, it's a huge part of why I bought it!
Very happy to hear you're having a great time! I've been ripping with mine lately as well, as I was able to finally replace a busted motor. Really, really love it!
Just wanted to update you guys that (as expected) 450mAh 2S GNB batteries are my new favorite (as suggested by many of you!). Thanks for the suggestion!
Based on what I've tested and what other people share as well, I'd say definitely yes! The quad flies really fine on 2S that's for sure, and already on only 350mah I get very decent flight times. The 450mah doesn't add much more weight and I'd assume the flight time should go up anywhere between 4-6 minutes depending on how you fly and what props you choose. Have fun and enjoy your Phantom, I know I do
Thanks for shownig. I am new to fpv and I am learning with X-lite controller on free fpv sim. My choice would be the GEPRC Phantom from what I could see on youtube. Hope one day I can fly like you. :-) I subscribed and liked your vid. Hope there will be more fpv stuff in the future. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for the kind words and the support! I can hardly express how much I appreciate it! Welcome to the hobby, I'm sure you'll love it and you will learn to fly like me (and much better) before you know it :). If you need any help on setting up the X-Lite, check my post on it - blog.georgi-yanev.com/fpv/set-up-taranis-x-lite-update-opentx/ . And have fun flying 🚁!
Thanks for that good review. Hold up good work 👍👍👍 Ordered mine and will fly it with 2s 650mah and avan rush ( where do I get rotor screws for them?). Do u know any fix for the turning antenas?
Thanks :) I haven't checked but I'm fairly confident you can get the necessary screws on banggood (or amazon?) I know what you mean about the antennas but in my case it hasn't been a big deal and I've never had an issue so didn't do anything about it. If your 3D printed antenna mount is too loose, you can try printing a new one I guess?
Interesting. I own two of these and both show these black horizontal distortions you also have at 9:26 - have you put research into that? I'm struggling with that since a few weeks now. I switched out literally everything and couldn't find the cause. Other than that... you are right. Really nice flying quad. Also fyi regarding flight time: I get around 7 minutes of regular flying with powerloops and stuff by running 3s 450mah and gemfan flash props. Worth checking out.
Interesting indeed - I hadn't noticed those distortions till now. And no, I have not put any time researching them. If I did though, I would start with the vtx and with potential power issues, but if I'm honest they don't bug me nearly as much. What I'd like the most and prob will be my next project with this quad, is to add a split type camera for HD recording (hopefully without destroying the flight characteristics). I've ordered the props you suggested, very curious to try them out, but not sure I'll get the chance still this year as winter in Finland is fast approaching :( Awesome about the flight time of 7 minutes, that's amazing, I can easily see that happening with the 3s 450mah battery you suggested, will see if I can also grab some of those :D
@@FPVtips Cool. What do you mean by "potential power issues"? I replaced the vtx two times, nothing to do with it. It must be somewhere in the design as a whole. Anyway, I also try to not get so frustrated about it, so... happy flying.
@@prottentogo For example, I've heard of power leads interfering with the FPV feed from the VTX (although on bigger quads), also what voltage should the VTX operate at optimally - does the flight controller provide such power, can it be improved? Does the capacitor filter out some voltage spikes properly if the VTX is running on VBAT, that kind of stuff :)
Yes,finally. Someone decided to upgrade camera on this drone. I want to upgrade on turtle v2, cause now it's the best,but I don't know how to, so I'm going to wait for your guide. Great video,keep it up.
Thanks, and oh yea, I'm very excited about this upgrade! I really want to keep 90% of the flight characteristics if possible and just get some nice HD video on top. Will try to figure it out over the winter :)
@@FPVtips I know that it's possible to install turtle v2(I saw video with that camera on phantom),this camera's software was updated recently,so it's very good now
@@sinoflust9917 I don't doubt that one bit, im just curious at what price of the flight characteristic comes such a camera. I would love it if the change is not too drastic. I guess we need to wait and see.
So does it fly better on the Avon Rush 2.5" tri-blades? I would be flying it on a 3s 450mAh mostly, But also have some 2s 525mAh. I would think the tri-blades better for 3s? Got this drone coming in a few days!
I prefer the handling with the Avon Rush props compared to the bi-blade stock props for sure, but the quad flies just fine with the stock props too. Try each for yourself and compare, also have a look into the props @prottentogo is suggesting below in the comments - they might be an even better fit for you as the battery you plan to use seem to be matching what he had used :)
@@FPVtips Thanks for answering! I think I`ll try both on the 2s 525mAh and think I`ll stick to stock on the 3s. I don`t want to fry the motors by drawing to much for them. But I am going to order the props that prottentogo said he gets 7 mins with! Thank you!
hey, I really want to buy this phantom to start in the hobby but I don t have any radio transmitter. IF I take the XM+ receiver, which transmitter do you suggest me ? thank you so much.(PS: if some of you I the comments have also a lot of experience , I would appreciate a lot 😊😊
YES i have this one on order from banggood! i picked it because it looked cute and like a bug with its twin tail and it's got a much more powerful tx than the puny 25mw thing that came with the first one I ever got! plus i want to do more soldering, get the engine wires braided and soldered onto the emc looking much neater! i love drones :D also watching you turn around the lamppost..hmm.. i would LOVE to get the source code for the flight controller and add some stats monitoring so when you pull a tight turn like that, it'll record the make accelerometer reported g force in a range of like, 0.5g to 5g, sustained for longer than maybe 0.5 seconds.. filter out knocks and transients but give you a good stats breakdown of the max g force you pulled in turns and hmm.. WOW it should just log the whole flight and pull it out afterwards for stats analysis O.O
It's awesome you're so much into this! It sounds to me like you might want ot get involved in Betaflight's development, if so, check it out here: github.com/betaflight/betaflight This is what drives the FC. Also, Betaflight has a blackbox feature, that some capable flight controller can utilize to record data, which you can then explore with the Betaflight Blackbox Explorer - github.com/betaflight/blackbox-log-viewer/releases Have fun :)
@@BenderTheOffender Compared to the stock bi blade props I agree. As for the Avan Rush, I got to admit I've smacked them around quiiiiite a lot and haven't bent even 1 yet (just some minor notches at the sharp edge of the prop).
i love my geprc phantom too, even i build based on my prefered parts. i have tried to installed caddx baby turtle but for me the prop view and the fpv experienced with this camera doesnt feel right. with eos or runcam nano2 the fpv experience is so much better and the flight characteristic is top notch without hd cam.
Interesting! I love hearing about your experiences, give me a lot of food for thought and steers the direction of my projects. I can't help but wonder how would it be with the RunCam Split 3 Nano. Fingers crossed it just might work!
@@FPVtips So i built another geprc phantom kwad with dual cam, main camera is Caddx EOS 2 for fpv feed, and make custom mount for caddx baby turtle on top of it, yeah it doesnt look great but at least i still have good fpv experience and HD footage, of course i cant go full send with that setup. In the other hand my first geprc phantom kwad fly awesome, built with betafpv aio toothpick version, installed with happymodel diamond vtx and the dvr quality is much better than my goggle's dvr.
Thanks glad you liked it. I haven't had any oscillations on my Phantom, running on stock config with the Avan Rush 2.5. Are you flying Avan Rush too or some other Avan props?
@@Rc_impulse I'd say there's nothing wrong with bi-blade props and if you prefer those, enjoy and have fun! I'm not trying to convince anyone to use the tri blade Avan Rush props, but honestly I love the handling that a tri blade prop offers, that's my angle :D Otherwise, it's a fact that you get a bit more performance from the bi blade props for sure!
Try the ImpulseRC Driver FIxer if it's an issue with getting into DFU mode of the flight controller. Double check cables and USB port connections, try to test on another computer if possible to verify if the board works at all and it's not just some PC configuration / driver issues.
8000kv is far to high for 4s, I was running this qaud on 450mah 2s with rush props and it was fantastic, however I experienced a de-sync over concrete and collapsed the motor bearings on the 2 front motors -.-
True, I've came to realise that since as well :) Plenty satisfied with the performance on 2S. Were you able to glue the bearings, or too much hassle and better to just get replacement motors?
Here's the closest I got to a stock dump, in the setup section of my post - blog.georgi-yanev.com/fpv/emax-tinyhawk-freestyle-complete-review-and-setup/#setup
@@FPVtips I am quite new to drones and betaflight. My guess is that they have a peripheral on a custom port (I hope it's not the XM+ receiver). If "softserial" means that they use a normal digital IO port and "bitbang" a serial that would cause heavy CPU load. Tons of interrupts being thrown.
@@haka8702 Interesting. I'm not very familiar with all the intricacies but do you feel this is something that should be improved in Betaflight? Might drop a suggestion in their GitHub repo?
@@FPVtips They know what they are doing, firmware developers are hardcore coders in comparison to the average dev. I think they use the soft serial for the XM+ receiver, seems like the processor they use doesn't have free UARTs
![☀ Лучшее ощущение полета... Обзор, настройка, тесты [GepRC Phantom]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UH51P_7Kdo4/mqdefault.jpg)
![☀ Лучшее ощущение полета... Обзор, настройка, тесты [GepRC Phantom]](/img/tr.png)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
0:34 - Unboxing
1:24 - Specifications
3:59 - Betaflight configuration
6:21 - Premaiden preparation
7:01 - In the field
8:39 - Maiden flight (3S 300mah)
12:11 - 2S 350mah battery flight + stock bi-blade props
13:04 - 2S 350mah battery + Avon Rush 2.5 props
14:00 - 4S 520mah battery flight fail
14:49 - More 2S 350mah flight footage and rambling about how good it flies
15:50 - Some thoughts on upgrades
16:42 - Conclusion
The GEPRC Phantom is a fantastic quad for the money. I am running the HQProp T65mm bi-blade props on my GEPRC Phantom and love them. These props are very durable and offer the flight characteristics that work for my style of flying which is easy cruising and some proximity stuff; no hard acrobatics or stunts. I fly mostly 2S 520 mAh and 600 mAh GNB batteries (actually 2 1S batteries wired in series with DIY adapter). With this setup, I routinely get over 6 minutes from the 520 mAh batteries and often get more than 8 minutes on the 600 mAh batteries.
Nice, always cool to hear about other people's set up! Very nice flight times. I only recently got some GNB 2S 450mah, get pretty solid flight times on those too. Thanks for sharing.
Great review! Including different props and discussing your experiences. Keep up the great work! Hope your channel grows
Thanks, glad you liked it, I loved putting it together :)
I love mine. The batteries I like the best on it are 2s 550 and 3s 450. The props I like the best are hq t65 and the 2.5" avan rush. I also put the emax nano antenna on it but didn't notice a huge improvement on vtx signal.
Nice, thanks for sharing those with us! I'm yet to try out the hq props (postal strike in Finland and those will probably end up being tested next year, but nevertheless). Avan rush props I'm not taking those off the quad in the mean time
Just got mine in yesterday! Running 2s 450mah on stock blades and I absolutely love it. I plan to try the avan rush props as they were my favorite on my tiny hawk freestyle. Loved the review, it's a huge part of why I bought it!
Very happy to hear you're having a great time! I've been ripping with mine lately as well, as I was able to finally replace a busted motor. Really, really love it!
Tks a lot, as a newbie I was having a hard time to configure the Rssi in my phantom, now it is working perfectly. Good flights!
Awesome! Glad to help, welcome to FPV :)
Just wanted to update you guys that (as expected) 450mAh 2S GNB batteries are my new favorite (as suggested by many of you!). Thanks for the suggestion!
FPVtips are the HV batteries? Seems like only the 300mah GNB are HV.
My 450mAh 2S GNBs are not HV
Good to know! I ordered Tattu 450mAH 2S due to the lack of GNB. Pretty hard to get new lipos during the pandemic
Yep, a bit tricky indeed. I recently barely managed to get some 6S batteries myself. Your Tattu's should work just fine :)
So the 2s 450mah maybe a good fit for this? My phantom will be here in 2 days and I can't wait. Great video. Thank you.
Based on what I've tested and what other people share as well, I'd say definitely yes! The quad flies really fine on 2S that's for sure, and already on only 350mah I get very decent flight times. The 450mah doesn't add much more weight and I'd assume the flight time should go up anywhere between 4-6 minutes depending on how you fly and what props you choose. Have fun and enjoy your Phantom, I know I do
@@FPVtips Excellent. Thanks for the reply. It'll be here tomorrow and I can't wait.
I think the frame is great, it's like a miniature freestyle. I put the larva x hd guts with 1204s and on 3s it's a rocket!
great review, got one ordered , should ship 27th oct , can not wait.
Nice, enjoy it, it's a lovely little craft.
Thanks for shownig. I am new to fpv and I am learning with X-lite controller on free fpv sim. My choice would be the GEPRC Phantom from what I could see on youtube. Hope one day I can fly like you. :-) I subscribed and liked your vid. Hope there will be more fpv stuff in the future. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much for the kind words and the support! I can hardly express how much I appreciate it! Welcome to the hobby, I'm sure you'll love it and you will learn to fly like me (and much better) before you know it :). If you need any help on setting up the X-Lite, check my post on it - blog.georgi-yanev.com/fpv/set-up-taranis-x-lite-update-opentx/ . And have fun flying 🚁!
i am getting a ton of prop wash with the avan rush 2.5 might have to do a pid tune
Thanks for that good review. Hold up good work 👍👍👍 Ordered mine and will fly it with 2s 650mah and avan rush ( where do I get rotor screws for them?). Do u know any fix for the turning antenas?
Thanks :) I haven't checked but I'm fairly confident you can get the necessary screws on banggood (or amazon?) I know what you mean about the antennas but in my case it hasn't been a big deal and I've never had an issue so didn't do anything about it. If your 3D printed antenna mount is too loose, you can try printing a new one I guess?
I have Flysky FS-I6S Transmiter and Reciver will I be able to use them?
Did you bind the Taranis to the XM+ with D16-CH8 or D16-CH16?
Thanks for posting this valuable vid!
Thanks! I used D16, CH16 with no issues.
Interesting. I own two of these and both show these black horizontal distortions you also have at 9:26 - have you put research into that? I'm struggling with that since a few weeks now. I switched out literally everything and couldn't find the cause. Other than that... you are right. Really nice flying quad. Also fyi regarding flight time: I get around 7 minutes of regular flying with powerloops and stuff by running 3s 450mah and gemfan flash props. Worth checking out.
Interesting indeed - I hadn't noticed those distortions till now. And no, I have not put any time researching them. If I did though, I would start with the vtx and with potential power issues, but if I'm honest they don't bug me nearly as much. What I'd like the most and prob will be my next project with this quad, is to add a split type camera for HD recording (hopefully without destroying the flight characteristics). I've ordered the props you suggested, very curious to try them out, but not sure I'll get the chance still this year as winter in Finland is fast approaching :( Awesome about the flight time of 7 minutes, that's amazing, I can easily see that happening with the 3s 450mah battery you suggested, will see if I can also grab some of those :D
@@FPVtips Cool. What do you mean by "potential power issues"? I replaced the vtx two times, nothing to do with it. It must be somewhere in the design as a whole. Anyway, I also try to not get so frustrated about it, so... happy flying.
@@prottentogo For example, I've heard of power leads interfering with the FPV feed from the VTX (although on bigger quads), also what voltage should the VTX operate at optimally - does the flight controller provide such power, can it be improved? Does the capacitor filter out some voltage spikes properly if the VTX is running on VBAT, that kind of stuff :)
@@FPVtips Ah I see. For starters I guess I could experiment with lowering the vtx power a tiny bit. Thanks!
Yes,finally. Someone decided to upgrade camera on this drone. I want to upgrade on turtle v2, cause now it's the best,but I don't know how to, so I'm going to wait for your guide. Great video,keep it up.
Thanks, and oh yea, I'm very excited about this upgrade! I really want to keep 90% of the flight characteristics if possible and just get some nice HD video on top. Will try to figure it out over the winter :)
@@FPVtips I know that it's possible to install turtle v2(I saw video with that camera on phantom),this camera's software was updated recently,so it's very good now
@@sinoflust9917 I don't doubt that one bit, im just curious at what price of the flight characteristic comes such a camera. I would love it if the change is not too drastic. I guess we need to wait and see.
@@FPVtips ok. Waiting for HD upgrade from you😉
So does it fly better on the Avon Rush 2.5" tri-blades? I would be flying it on a 3s 450mAh mostly, But also have some 2s 525mAh. I would think the tri-blades better for 3s? Got this drone coming in a few days!
I prefer the handling with the Avon Rush props compared to the bi-blade stock props for sure, but the quad flies just fine with the stock props too. Try each for yourself and compare, also have a look into the props @prottentogo is suggesting below in the comments - they might be an even better fit for you as the battery you plan to use seem to be matching what he had used :)
@@FPVtips Thanks for answering! I think I`ll try both on the 2s 525mAh and think I`ll stick to stock on the 3s. I don`t want to fry the motors by drawing to much for them. But I am going to order the props that prottentogo said he gets 7 mins with! Thank you!
Thank you very much i enjoyed your video. could you please put a link for the 3 blade props you mentioned
Good point! Will update the description too. These are the Avon Rush 2.5 inch tri-blades I'm talking about: bit.ly/avon-rush-25
@@FPVtips THANX
Going to order one today thanks
Welcome to the club :) This thing is seriously so much fun to fly, it's crazy. Have fun!
hey, I really want to buy this phantom to start in the hobby but I don t have any radio transmitter. IF I take the XM+ receiver, which transmitter do you suggest me ? thank you so much.(PS: if some of you I the comments have also a lot of experience , I would appreciate a lot 😊😊
YES i have this one on order from banggood! i picked it because it looked cute and like a bug with its twin tail and it's got a much more powerful tx than the puny 25mw thing that came with the first one I ever got! plus i want to do more soldering, get the engine wires braided and soldered onto the emc looking much neater! i love drones :D also watching you turn around the lamppost..hmm.. i would LOVE to get the source code for the flight controller and add some stats monitoring so when you pull a tight turn like that, it'll record the make accelerometer reported g force in a range of like, 0.5g to 5g, sustained for longer than maybe 0.5 seconds.. filter out knocks and transients but give you a good stats breakdown of the max g force you pulled in turns and hmm.. WOW it should just log the whole flight and pull it out afterwards for stats analysis O.O
It's awesome you're so much into this! It sounds to me like you might want ot get involved in Betaflight's development, if so, check it out here:
github.com/betaflight/betaflight
This is what drives the FC. Also, Betaflight has a blackbox feature, that some capable flight controller can utilize to record data, which you can then explore with the Betaflight Blackbox Explorer - github.com/betaflight/blackbox-log-viewer/releases
Have fun :)
It flies great AND very quiet with Avan Blur Props...
Added to my list, will definitely check them out, thanks for sharing. At least at a glance they look very similar to the Avan Rush props.
@@FPVtips Same props, just a little smaller with 2 inch. You can hardly hear the quad in the air.
@@BenderTheOffender Sweet, grabbing a few sets :)
@@FPVtips One more advantage is, that the 2 inch Avan props are much more durable and won't bend in every minor little crash.
@@BenderTheOffender Compared to the stock bi blade props I agree. As for the Avan Rush, I got to admit I've smacked them around quiiiiite a lot and haven't bent even 1 yet (just some minor notches at the sharp edge of the prop).
i love my geprc phantom too, even i build based on my prefered parts. i have tried to installed caddx baby turtle but for me the prop view and the fpv experienced with this camera doesnt feel right. with eos or runcam nano2 the fpv experience is so much better and the flight characteristic is top notch without hd cam.
Interesting! I love hearing about your experiences, give me a lot of food for thought and steers the direction of my projects. I can't help but wonder how would it be with the RunCam Split 3 Nano. Fingers crossed it just might work!
@@FPVtips So i built another geprc phantom kwad with dual cam, main camera is Caddx EOS 2 for fpv feed, and make custom mount for caddx baby turtle on top of it, yeah it doesnt look great but at least i still have good fpv experience and HD footage, of course i cant go full send with that setup. In the other hand my first geprc phantom kwad fly awesome, built with betafpv aio toothpick version, installed with happymodel diamond vtx and the dvr quality is much better than my goggle's dvr.
@@paparannu9184 Interesting! That is probably a bit more weight that just using a split type camera though, but hey if it works why not :D
Appreciate the great review
I tried the Avan 2.5” and get bad oscillation any idea why ?
Thanks glad you liked it. I haven't had any oscillations on my Phantom, running on stock config with the Avan Rush 2.5. Are you flying Avan Rush too or some other Avan props?
FPVtips yes I’m sure they are the Avan rush. I’ll give them another shot indoors they weren’t that great like bi blades have not tried outside
@@Rc_impulse I'd say there's nothing wrong with bi-blade props and if you prefer those, enjoy and have fun! I'm not trying to convince anyone to use the tri blade Avan Rush props, but honestly I love the handling that a tri blade prop offers, that's my angle :D Otherwise, it's a fact that you get a bit more performance from the bi blade props for sure!
FPVtips makes sense!
In this quad XT30 or XT60?
XT30
If I need to look up a diagram for the FC to connect the reciever, what board name would I google?
STABLE F411 is what you should look for.
FPVtips perfect. How loud is the phantom compared to a 1s brushed quad?
Hi, I did build my Phantom Toothpick from parts. Could you please provide me PID settings as I do not have defaults from factory. Many thanks!
Nice, enjoy it. I have a screenshot of the stock PIDs on this page - blog.georgi-yanev.com/fpv/geprc-phantom-review-and-setup/#setup
@@FPVtips many thanks!
the bike, good idea lol
What size harware are you using for the props
The props are 2.5" Avan Rush if that's what you are curious about :)
What size screws did you use to hold the props on I cant find the size anywhere
Can anyone help on this one, i cannot gt my phantom to show up in betaflight at all, it keeps timing out after 10 seconds?
Try the ImpulseRC Driver FIxer if it's an issue with getting into DFU mode of the flight controller. Double check cables and USB port connections, try to test on another computer if possible to verify if the board works at all and it's not just some PC configuration / driver issues.
8000kv is far to high for 4s, I was running this qaud on 450mah 2s with rush props and it was fantastic, however I experienced a de-sync over concrete and collapsed the motor bearings on the 2 front motors -.-
True, I've came to realise that since as well :) Plenty satisfied with the performance on 2S. Were you able to glue the bearings, or too much hassle and better to just get replacement motors?
Did you screw the avan rush props on? Or just friction fitting?
@@pxsaber2177 Screwed them on.
@@FPVtips sorry for the late reply just got the notification, I replaced the motors the bells were bent too.
@@pxsaber2177 I've been running mine friction fit, they're very tight.
Hey there, do you have the dumb all somewhere? I fucked up mine after try to flashing it to BF4.1?
Here's the closest I got to a stock dump, in the setup section of my post - blog.georgi-yanev.com/fpv/emax-tinyhawk-freestyle-complete-review-and-setup/#setup
@@FPVtips Thank you very much. I also asked geprc for the file, but they aren't responding at all
@@LimonadenFred No worries, I got you :) Happy to help!
There is a DJI version of this now.
That's awesome!
mine came with softserial enabled, confuses me
Hm, why would they do that
@@FPVtips I am quite new to drones and betaflight. My guess is that they have a peripheral on a custom port (I hope it's not the XM+ receiver).
If "softserial" means that they use a normal digital IO port and "bitbang" a serial that would cause heavy CPU load. Tons of interrupts being thrown.
@@haka8702 Interesting. I'm not very familiar with all the intricacies but do you feel this is something that should be improved in Betaflight? Might drop a suggestion in their GitHub repo?
@@FPVtips They know what they are doing, firmware developers are hardcore coders in comparison to the average dev.
I think they use the soft serial for the XM+ receiver, seems like the processor they use doesn't have free UARTs